March to the Stars

by David Weber

  "I'd really appreciate it if you didn't do that," Beach said. "I know we've had our differences over the One Faith, but you have to admit that suicide generally isn't a good thing. Think of the resource waste."

  Giovannuci smiled thinly at her over the monitor.

  "No, Beach, we are different. You see, I believe, and you don't. That's why I'm in command, and you're not. If you can't break the deadlock at the Armory, I'll have to set the scuttling charges."

  "Oh, grand," she whispered, after she'd cut the circuit. She thought furiously for a moment, but she couldn't really see a way out. The tactical officer had a second key for the self-destruct mechanism, so she was unnecessary; her absence from the Bridge wouldn't keep Giovannuci from doing exactly what he'd just said he would.

  "Oh, Pollution," she whispered again . . . then slammed into the bulkhead as her uniform hardened under a savage kinetic impact.

  She bounced back and spun in place, raising her bead rifle, but a whirl of silver smashed into the breech, crushed her left hand, and pitched the weapon from her grasp. She started to drop into a crouch, but the backswing caught her on the side of the helmet, and she rebounded off the bulkhead again, then slumped to the deck.

  Poertena used the wrench to smash out the monitor, then dragged the unconscious officer into a nearby supply cabinet. Assuming they survived this goat-pock, they might need her, so he pulled off her communicator and weapons, then welded the door shut. The door had an air seal and was marked as an emergency life-support shelter, so as long as the ship didn't explode, she should be fine.

  * * *

  Rastar looked down the seemingly endless passageway, and then glanced at the human pilot.

  "You're sure it's this way?"

  "That's what the schematic said," Dobrescu replied shortly. "It's a ways yet."

  "Very well." The Vashin prince lifted his arm into the air in a broad and a dramatic gesture. "To the shuttle bays!"

  He continued down the high, wide passage. It was the first thing they'd found on the ship that wasn't made for midgets, and it was a vast relief. He and Honal had divided their forces in order to approach the shuttle bays from different directions in the hope that one of them might get through unintercepted. So far, neither of them had encountered any actual resistance, and that made Rastar very, very nervous. It was also one reason he was so glad to see this spacious corridor. All the Mardukans found the normal short, narrow passages, and the strangely close "horizon" caused by the curvature of the ship, very odd and alien, but his concern was much more basic. The farther ahead he could see, the less likely he was to walk into an ambush.

  After about five minutes, they reached a "T" intersection, with signs leading to the Bridge and the shuttle bays. The Vashin noble waved to the left, then watched as the plasma gunner on point flew backwards with the entire back of his head blown out.

  Rastar didn't even think about his response. He simply drew all four bead pistols and leapt across the relatively narrow intersection, guns blazing. He was surprised, however, to see only a single human figure in the passage. The human was standing with pistols in each hand, and they flashed upward like lightning as Rastar leapt. Despite the fact that the human couldn't possibly have known exactly where and when Raster would appear, four rounds cracked into the Vashin's suit before he landed on the far side of the intersection.

  Fortunately, none of them penetrated, and Rastar slammed to the deck. He raised his hands to the group on the far side, motioning for them to stay put. Then he popped his head out and back, quickly, followed by a hand in a "wait a moment" gesture that was nearly as universal among Mardukans as it was among humans.

  When that didn't draw any fire, he poked his head out into the corridor, as close to the deck as he could get it. This time the response was immediate and vigorous, and Rastar swore as he jerked back. One of the incoming rounds had missed completely, but the other had plowed a groove in the side of his helmet. Another half-centimeter to the side, and it would have plowed a hole clear through the helmet, which would have been most unpleasant.

  The Prince of Therdan sat back, considering what he'd seen in his single, brief glance. The Saint was short, even for a basik—not much taller than Poertena. But the speed and lethal accuracy he'd already demonstrated told the prince that here was an opponent worthy of him. It wasn't as good as swords or knives, but it would have to do.

  He thought for a few more moments, then grinned in the human fashion as he saw the sign on the bulkhead beside him. He didn't know where the passage the human was in actually led, but it didn't lead to the shuttle bays, assuming the bulkhead sign was correct. The little gunman must have chosen his position to take anyone headed for the shuttle bays in the flank as they passed.

  "Dobrescu?" he said over the radio.

  "Yes?"

  "Go back the way we came. Link up with Honal."

  "What about you?"

  "I think this fellow is good enough that we'd all like him kept right where he is," Rastar replied.

  As he spoke, he eased a bit closer to the intersection, then leaned out, spotted the human—half-concealed now behind what looked like a ripped-out hatch—and fired four rounds rapid-fire. His opponent ducked, but only for an instant, and then it was Rastar's turn to roll hastily further into cover as beads screamed lethally past.

  "You go find Honal," he told the human healer cheerfully. "I'll stay here and play for a while."

  * * *

  "We've got to go," Giovannuci said, and sealed his uniform jacket. The material wouldn't be proof against the plasma and bead cannon of the Empie Marines, but it would at least give some protection from flashback and spalling.

  "What about Beach, Sir?" Cellini asked.

  Giovannuci only shrugged and gestured at the hatch, but as the armored commando keyed the opening, he wondered himself. The first officer was one of only four people who could disarm the scuttling charges, after all.

  * * *

  "Captain Pahner, we've got a counterattack going!" Despreaux called. "They're attempting to break out from the Armory!"

  "How are you doing?" Pahner asked. Captain Fain had been held up by a small group of wandering commandos, but he was nearly to the sergeant's position—no more than a minute out. Of course, in combat, a minute was a long time.

  "Kyrou and Birkendal are dead, Sir," the sergeant replied. Pahner could hear the thump of fire in the background over her voice. Given that she was inside armor, that meant some heavy impacts. "Clarke's hit, but still fighting, and the St. Johns are out on the hull. I'm down to four people, Sir."

  "Just hold out for another minute, Sergeant," the captain replied calmly. "Just one minute. Fain's nearly there."

  "We'll try, Sir," she said. "I'm—"

  Pahner shook his head as the communications system automatically dumped a feedback squeal. Something had filled the frequency with static. He knew what the sound meant, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

  "Sergeant Despreaux?" He asked. Silence answered. "Computer, switch: Beckley?"

  "Sir!" The Alpha Team leader was panting. "Despreaux's down! We're in bug-out boogie mode, Sir. The Armory is open!"

  "Hold tight, Beckley," Pahner replied. "You just have to hold on!"

  "I'd like to, Sir, but it's just me and Kileti functional. Kane bought it, Chio has Clarke, and I have Nimashet. We're going to try to pull back through the Diasprans and hand over the fight. We don't have a choice, Sir."

  "Computer, switch: Fain!"

  * * *

  Gronningen ducked as a burst of plasma filled the passage with steam. A previous burst had penetrated the inboard bulkhead and cracked a gray-water pipe. Now the blast turned the gray-water to vapor and fecal plasma.

  "Julian!" he called, lifting his own plasma cannon over the security station and blasting away in return. "They're trying to break out!"

  "All units," Pahner announced over the general frequency. "General counterattack underway. Hold what you've got; the Diasprans are nearly ther
e!"

  "Pocking hell," the squad leader snarled, sliding on his belly towards the plasma gunner's position. "Why couldn't they just wait for our reinforcements?"

  "Because they don't want to die?" the Asgardian suggested. "You know—"

  The second blast of plasma had been more carefully coordinated, with two plasma cannons and a bead cannon all aimed at the base of the security point. Although the security point was a "hard patch," a ChromSten plate which was not only secured to the bulkhead but anchored into the next deck, the concentrated blast from multiple sources first weakened the armored patch, then ripped it out of its frame.

  The ChromSten plate, its backing of hardened steel melted in the intense heat, flew down the passage, catching Moseyev unawares and slamming him into the outboard bulkhead.

  And all the coordinated fire the plate was no longer intercepting tore into Gronningen.

  * * *

  Julian ducked under the last blast of plasma fire, reached the stricken Asgardian, and rolled him over. The final blast had caught him just below the waist, and shredded the heavy body armor with effortless viciousness. Gronningen's eyes were screwed shut, but he opened them for just a moment, raising a hand to his squad leader. His mouth worked soundlessly, and the hand clamped on the sergeant's armored shoulder.

  Then it dropped, and Adib Julian let out a scream of pure primal rage.

  "Stay down!" Macek bellowed as he grabbed Julian from behind and fought to wrestle him to the deck, but Julian wasn't interested in staying down.

  "Dead! They're all dead!" he yelled, and swatted Macek away like a toy.

  "Sergeant Julian," Pahner called. "What is your situation?"

  "I'm sending them all to hell, Sir!" the sergeant yelled back, and picked up the plasma gunner's weapon.

  Julian's toot, courtesy of Temu Jin, had been reloaded with all the hacking protocols available to military and civilian intelligence, alike. He used them now, diving deep into the central circuits of his own armor, ripping out security protocols until the system was down to bare bones. Although personal armor was designed to be partially mobile in zero-gravity, the jump system had never been designed for full-gravity combat. But by taking all the control systems off of what was, effectively, a small plasma cannon, the sergeant could create a jump capability that was actually worth the name.

  Of course, there were drawbacks.

  "Don't try this at home, boys and girls," he hissed, and hit the power circuit.

  His leap carried him over the barricade and into the deckhead, and the howling plasma stream melted the bulkheads behind him.

  Macek let out a yowl as the stream passed across his lower legs, heating the nearly invulnerable armor of his suit and jumping the internal temperature nearly a hundred degrees. The automatic systems dumped the heat nearly as fast as it went up, but for just a moment, the armor made Marduk seem cool.

  Julian's armor smashed into the overhead, taking him partially into the upper deck, throwing him from side to side in an erratic pattern that was impossible for the Saint battle armor to track. Somehow, he managed to turn a bounce into a spin, bringing himself around as the last of the power was expended, and as the jump gear's last, spiteful bit of plasma bit into the overhead, he caromed from one side of the passage to the other until he landed on his feet behind the Saint defenders.

  The four Saints were still trying to track in on him as his first blast hit them. He swept the weapon from side to side, low, ripping their legs out from under them. As the commandos fell, he continued to sweep the weapon back and forth, ignoring the screaming emergency overload indicator as he melted not only their fallen battle armor, but the deck underneath and the bulkheads to either side. He expended the cannon's power like a drunkard, but before the capacitor completely discharged, the overloaded control circuits let go.

  The ball of undirected plasma picked the sergeant up and slammed him backwards into the armored command deck hatch. Since the door was made of ChromSten, like the armor, but much thicker, he hit and bounced.

  Hard.

  * * *

  Krindi Fain shook his head as the human suits fell backward into the intersecting side passage and then rolled around the corner for shelter. The air in the other passage was silver and red with plasma bolts, and the bulkhead on the opposite edge of the corridor disappeared as the fire from the Saints punched through it into one of the innumerable holds before dissipating itself on the cargo.

  His unit—twenty Diasprans, the captain himself, Erkum Pol, and the drummer—was approaching from the ship's west. The Armory ought to be about twenty meters up the passageway the humans had just tumbled out of. And, obviously, it was heavily defended.

  "Ah, me," he muttered as he fumbled with the human radio controls. "SNAPU: Situation Normal, All Pocked Up. First Platoon will prepare to engage," he said, continuing to trot towards the intersection as he finally got the radio to work properly. The fire had slackened off to what the defenders obviously believed was enough to keep the Marines from reentering the passage. "Platoon will face right into the corridor, in column of threes, proceeding to the Armory by volley fire at a march. Platoon, quick time . . . march."

  * * *

  "Sergeant, what's that?"

  Private Kapila Ammann would have been just as happy to crawl back into his bunk. He'd long ago quit trying to figure out why he'd ever joined the commandos. It was days like this that made him count the number of hours until his ETS date, but the way things were going, he wasn't going to make it for another one hundred and twenty-six days, fourteen hours, and—he glanced at his chrono—twenty-three minutes.

  "What's what?" Sergeant Gao snapped, then looked up in surprise from the casualty he was treating. "A unit . . . marching?"

  "Holy Pollution," Ammann whispered as the Diasprans rounded the corner. "They gave scummies plasma guns!"

  * * *

  In the last few months, the Diasprans had gone through revolutions in weaponry that humans had taken millennia to achieve. They'd started off as untrained conscripts who had been turned into pikemen. Then they'd progressed to musketeers, then to rifle skirmishers, and now they were plasma and bead gunners. But much of their drill from the early days remained. And they used it now.

  The first rank turned the corner, pivoting on the interior Mardukan, leveled their plasma cannon, and opened fire, stepping forward at a walk.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  "Aaaaahh!"

  Kapila hugged the deck as the air literally disappeared around him. The Mardukan fire mostly went over his head, but its intensity first superheated the atmosphere in the corridor, then expanded it to the very fringe of vacuum. He supposed he could return the fire, but there didn't seem to be much point. If he killed one or two of the scummies with a shot, the rest would turn him into drifting atoms for his efforts. Even if they didn't, a near miss would be sufficient to kill him. Flying fragments could easily punch holes in his standard ship suit, which would permit the intense heat to fry him to a crisp . . . which would at least save him from asphyxiation when his suit depressurized.

  But so far, they seemed to be missing. He liked that, and he had no intention of doing anything to change it.

  He rolled his head to look back up the passage behind him and saw that the entire unit was gone. One or two of them might have gotten back into the Armory, but he saw at least four carbon statues that indicated casualties. Graubart was still alive, though. He might even stay that way, if he got some prompt medical attention. Sergeant Gao, on the other hand, was just a pair of legs, attached to some cooked meat.

  Kapila slid his bead rifle carefully to the side and spreadeagled himself on the deck, hoping that the scummies would settle for just capturing him.

  Of course, he'd heard that scummies tortured their prisoners to death. But if it was a question of the possibility of torture, or absolutely buying it from a plasma blast, he'd go for the possibility any day.

  * * *

  "Cease fire," Fain ordered as he stepped a
round a gaping hole in the deck. His troopers' fire had opened the bulkheads on either side of the passage to the surrounding compartments, and the wrecked corridor sparked with electricity and finely divided steam. The ChromSten reinforced Armory had shrugged off most of the damage, and now most of one of its walls and its support structure—which had taken a beating—could be seen through the gaps in the bulkheads. All in all, they'd done quite a bit of damage, he reflected. But as long as they were in their suits, the environmental conditions were survivable. Actually, things were looking good; the Armory hatch was shut, and the passage was secure.

  "Sergeant Sern, take four men and secure the far end of the hall." He fumbled with his radio some more until he managed to shift frequencies. "Captain Pahner, we have the corridor outside the Armory. The doors are shut, though."

  There was a human—presumably one of the "Saint Commandos"—lying face-down on the deck. He didn't appear to be injured, but he had his fingers interlaced on the back of his helmet, and he wasn't moving. Fain gestured to Pol, who picked the wretch up by the back of his uniform and dangled him in the air.

  "And it seems that we have a prisoner, too."

  * * *

  Roger rounded the corner to the bridge entrance and stopped, shaking his head in awe. The ship was trashed. Indeed, never in his worst nightmares had he ever imagined that a ship could be so trashed and still hang together.

  More or less.

  The deck looked as if it had been carved by a giant kindergartner who had somehow gotten his hands on an absentmindedly mislaid blowtorch. The heavy-duty plastic of the decksole had melted and splashed, leaving jagged splatters, like impressionistic stalagmites, on the bulkheads and huge dripping holes in the deck itself. The bulkheads had sustained major damage of their own, as well. Many of the holes blasted through them were large enough for battle armor to crawl through into the surrounding compartments. One of the larger ones led to what had once been the captain's day cabin, which was as thoroughly trashed as the passageway itself.

  And the Bridge hatch was, once again, firmly shut.